Car bonus rule change impact review

[Duplode]

After my post on the 2020 rule LTB changes, I felt it might be of some use to also have a look at the effects of the 2019 tweaks to the car bonus system. I remember being a little worried back then about the slower bonus changes possibly unbalancing the rotation in favour of powergear cars. Let's see how that panned out.

Here is a summary of top 10 car usage for the 2017 and 2018 seasons, before the changes:

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Car Points 1-6 Points 1-10 1st 2nd 3rd Podiums Full Podiums Occurrences Notes
JAGU 67 299 2 3 2 3 1 33
ZF40 62 253 2 2 3 3 2 26
AUDI 56 216 2 2 2 2 2 18
CDOR 56 214 2 2 3 3 2 22
LM02 52 208 2 2 2 2 2 23
ANSX 42 138 2 2 1 2 1 10 Powergear
P962 41 151 2 1 2 2 1 14
COUN 34 126 2 1 1 2 1 12
ZPTR 26 109 1 1 1 1 1 12 2017 only
LANC 26 100 1 1 1 1 1 9


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ZMP4 26 98 1 1 1 1 1 8 2018 only
PC04 26 95 1 1 1 1 1 9
NSKY 26 95 1 1 1 1 1 8
PMIN 26 94 1 1 1 1 1 7 Powergear
FGTO 26 71 2 1 0 2 0 5 Powergear
VETT 16 76 0 1 1 1 0 9 Powergear
RANG 9 46 0 1 0 1 0 6 2018 only
ZLET 7 27 0 0 1 1 0 2 2017 only

Total 624 2416 24 24 24 30 18 233


("Points 1-6" are assigned according to the scoring system F1 used in the 90's, 10-6-4-3-2-1, while "Points 1-10" use the current F1 system, 25-18-15-12-10-8-6-4-2-1.)

And here is the same data for 2019 and 2020:

Code Select Expand


Car Points 1-6 Points 1-10 1st 2nd 3rd Podiums Full Podiums Occurrences Notes
PMIN 62 201 4 1 2 5 1 15 Powergear
P962 61 278 2 1 3 3 1 34
PC04 60 257 2 2 2 2 2 30
LANC 52 209 1 3 3 3 1 21
SUKA 46 173 2 2 1 2 1 18
RANG 45 178 2 2 1 2 1 18 2019 only
ANSX 45 163 2 1 2 2 1 14 Powergear
DBMW 37 180 0 2 3 3 0 22 2019 only
VETT 37 127 2 1 1 2 1 9 Powergear
DAUD 29 102 2 0 1 3 0 9


Code Select Expand


AUDI 29 90 1 2 1 2 0 6
COUN 27 95 1 2 0 2 0 8
ZTST 25 104 1 1 1 1 1 11 2020 only
ZF40 21 71 1 1 1 1 1 6
JAGU 16 73 0 1 1 1 0 7
LM02 16 65 1 0 0 1 0 7
DMCB 10 34 0 1 1 1 0 3 2020 only
FGTO 6 24 0 1 0 1 0 2 Powergear

Total 624 2424 24 24 24 37 11 240


While usage of powergear cars did increase, it turns out they were being underused before the changes, with the higher frequency of split podiums involving them perhaps masking that. The current scenario is arguably closer to parity, with PG cars having gone from 17.6% to 24.0% of the points in the 1-6 system. In any case, we are definitely not in 2008 territory, and I don't think there will be too many complaints if we keep getting an extra Indy-amenable race per year. (Back in 2008, as we tried to figure out how to make the bonus system run smoothly, the rotation was a touch too slow, resulting in nine (!) powergear car victories, including five all-PG podiums.)

Besides the matter of powergear, another key aspect to look into is diversity of car choices within a race, as increasing it was taken as a goal in the pre-2019 discussions. The data confirms the revised system passed this test with flying colours. We went from 6 mixed podiums over the 24 races of 2017 and 2018 (with 4 of them involving PG cars) to 13 over the following 24 races (6 of them with PG cars). I'd say the current amount of multi-car races is close to ideal: on the one hand, having it way below half of the races, as it used to be a few years ago, felt like a missed opportunity; on the other hand, I suspect having it way above half could be a tad exhausting, given the increased strategical complexity.

[Cas]

When the talks where going on about the possibility of implementing a change in the car bonus system, I was for it, but I thought it mostly as an experiment. None of us could be really sure of whether it was going to work really well. This is a very good analysis. I hadn't sat down to ("hadn't sut"?  No, that doesn't exist. Is "sat" the participle?)... to put more detailed attention to it, but I definitely saw a lot more diversity, so I was already calling it a success some time ago. It's really good to see it clearly now in black and white

[KyLiE]

Ahh, the 90s!  The glory days of F1.  Great analysis by the way!